Chapter Seven: Want to Try the Newly Applied Lipstick?
The bathroom door was tightly closed, with a faint light seeping through the cracks. Next to it, on the wooden floor, was a neatly stacked set of clean maid outfits.
Hearing the sounds of bathing from inside, Shaya paid it no mind and made his way straight to the living room.
On the table in the living room lay a pile of disorganized letters. Shaya gathered them up in his hands and settled into a nearby sofa in a relaxed manner, pulling out one envelope to examine the sender’s address.
Saint Fry Publishing?
Seeing this address, Shaya instantly understood, and in a good mood, he broke the red wax seal on the envelope and took out a piece of paper.
The paper recorded several lines of text.
[Dear “Cain”:]
[Regarding your works “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “The Three Musketeers,” the third installment of royalties has been wired to the unnamed account as requested, totaling eight hundred eighty-six imperial gold coins. In the coming days, we eagerly await the release of your new work.]
[By the way, due to the popularity of “The Three Musketeers” in the Royal Capital, the issues mentioned regarding the undermining of religious beliefs have caused dissatisfaction within the Church of Light. We hope you take note.]
The signature bore the seal of Saint Fry Publishing, featuring the founder’s portrait.
As for “Cain,” it was his pen name.
Religious issues?
Thinking back for a moment about the content of the book, Shaya couldn’t help but chuckle.
He hadn’t thought so much while writing; he simply crafted a western-style light novel and a western martial arts story based on the general background of this world.
Literature trends these days were still rather subtle and conservative, mostly centered around romantic themes or epic war tales, with a relatively high threshold, and popular tragic endings, leading to a poor reading experience for many.
By transplanting two literary masterpieces that had the makings of light novels in his past life into this world, Shaya was purely delivering a dimensional blow—there was no way it wouldn’t be popular.
“There’s no need to mention ‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ a classic revenge story.”
“As for ‘The Three Musketeers,’ it involves the struggles of the ruling class between royal power and religion, especially depicting Cardinal Richelieu as a villainous figure infringing upon power.”
Moreover, in this world, the Church of Light, serving the goddess, also has positions akin to cardinals, making it hard not to feel a sense of allusion.
But to be honest, he hadn’t thought that much about it. He merely picked two books at random based on his memories.
He even wavered before writing “The Three Musketeers,” debating whether to rework the original farming-themed “Robinson Crusoe.”
In the end, he chose the former because the trajectory of this world’s development was somewhat peculiar. Influenced by its fantasy setting, firearms had never been birthed in this world.
So he thought to provide those craftsmen with a concept, hoping to spark some inspiration.
“More than eight hundred gold coins? That’s a decent share, but unfortunately, it’s far from enough for me right now.”
Shaya shook his head.
Nearly nine hundred gold coins could buy a relatively decent duplex in the Royal Capital, including two young maids.
However, under similar circumstances, this amount could only purchase one-third of a gram of Illusory Realm Stone powder.
And each teleportation ritual required at least four to five thousand gold coins, and that was just the cost of the Illusory Realm Stone powder, not considering the losses of other materials.
Shaya immediately felt an overwhelming urgency.
Feeling poor!
He sighed deeply in his heart.
He needed to think of a way to make money quickly.
After finishing the first envelope, Shaya focused his attention on the other letters.
Aside from a formal greeting from the academy, the rest were all from several intelligence gatherers he had hired: thieves, gang bosses, tavern owners, mercenaries… these types of people often had the most up-to-date information.
Although ten years had passed, he still had no leads on the sun family crest.
He had invested considerable manpower and resources to inquire about the countries surrounding the Hiren Empire, whether they were hostile nations, neutral ones, or vassal states, but consistently came up empty.
Logically speaking, a family that could use the sun as its crest would surely belong to one of the prominent grand nobles in their country. Even if they had fallen on hard times, they would have had a glorious past, and they surely wouldn’t be some obscure existence, especially considering they were a bunch of cold-blooded executioners who had committed heinous crimes.
But the fact was that those people seemed to have evaporated without a trace in this world.
He had even doubted whether this force might originate from within the Hiren Empire.
Because those knights spoke the imperial common language, and the style of their armor was similar to that of the current army, lacking any foreign flair.
He had only recently thought of this possibility and had just begun his investigation.
But for now, he still had no results.
Within the empire, the twelve nobles of the round table, as well as those well-known lords of the upper class, did not have the sun as their family crest.
Holding a glimmer of hope, Shaya opened the remaining letters and read through them carefully.
Unfortunately, this time he still found nothing.
Shaya let out a soft sigh.
The last letter had no address or signature, containing only a note with a hasty scribble that read:
[Beware of the “Sun.”]
Similar letters had started arriving three years ago, and at first, Shaya tried to investigate to find out who the sender was, but ultimately came up empty.
The sender knew he was investigating the sun family crest but did not make a fuss about it, instead tirelessly reminding him, suggesting there was no malicious intent.
But aside from that phrase, Shaya had never received any other hints.
Perhaps it was because he was too weak and not yet qualified to touch on the insides, so the sender was simply reminding him out of impatience, not wanting him to get involved.
For now, all he could do was continue to grow stronger until the day he was qualified to uncover the truth.
“…”
After dealing with the letters in hand, Shaya put down all the papers.
At that moment, the bathroom door was gently pushed open.
Accompanied by a faint fragrant mist, a long-haired woman wrapped in a towel stepped out.
She was tall and shapely, her wet hair cascading over her flawless snowy shoulders and her prominent chest, her gentle and stunning looks resembling the first love that every man harbors deep inside.
Seemingly surprised to see Shaya, who had been away for three days, the woman walked barefoot across the wooden floor, tapping lightly, “Young Master?”
“Deyora, how have you been these past few days?”
Shaya greeted her with a smile.
To his surprise, she seemed a bit overly enthusiastic, running straight to the back of the sofa, bending down to wrap her arms around Shaya’s neck, her ample chest pressing against him, and then gently nudging her delicate chin against the top of his head.
While inhaling Shaya’s scent, she complained, “Leaving a beautiful lady alone at home for three whole days without returning is not very gentlemanly. Fortunately, you don’t seem to carry anyone else’s scent. You must not have gone out to ‘socialize’ with the sons of those lords. As your maid, I find this quite comforting.”
“I’m only 16, what are you thinking?”
Feeling the endless softness at the back of his head, Shaya had grown accustomed to such affection.
Deyora hummed, “That’s hard to say; at least many noble-born young fellows learn to play with women by your age.”
“I’m not like them, and besides, are there really impoverished nobles?” Shaya shrugged, trying to change the subject. “But you usually bathe before bedtime; why are you choosing this time today?”
Upon hearing this, Deyora’s expression flickered with a hint of discomfort.
She instinctively glanced at the clothes piled up in the bathroom, soaked with dirty water, hesitated, and ultimately decided not to bring it up, her expression quickly returning to normal.
“Who knows? Perhaps I sensed that the Young Master was coming back, so I wanted to quickly wash up and do something a maid should do? Hmm~ For example… want to try the lipstick I just applied?”
Deyora leaned down, gently blowing into Shaya’s ear, her glossy lips shining.
“You know, at my age, it’s hard to resist the temptation of a beautiful big sister.”
Shaya’s body tensed slightly, and he offered insincere praise before turning his gaze to the painting on the wall.
Seeing his indifferent demeanor, Deyora showed a hint of discontent.
Since the tragic incident ten years ago, Deyora, who had narrowly escaped after going into town, had taken on the responsibility of caring for the children, playing both sister and mother in their lives.
Because of her personality, the relationship between Deyora and Shaya was not a simple master-servant one compared to other noble maids, without distinction in status; over the span of ten years, they had grown as close as family.
However, in recent years, as Shaya slowly grew up, it seemed that their relationship was beginning to undergo a transformation.
